


Weak

by cakecoffeeandzombies



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Cancer, F/F, Humanstuck, Leukemia, Sadstuck, but hopeful, hopefulstuck?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 19:56:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cakecoffeeandzombies/pseuds/cakecoffeeandzombies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She is stunning, and you are weak.</p><p>You recall watching her as she surveyed the halls time and time again, floating delicately, snowy blond hair pushed back with dark headbands and ribbons. She isn't employed here, but she’s here often, most likely a high school volunteer. She moved as if she were part of some grand waltz, tiptoeing graciously throughout the small boneyard of Sick Kids and Dead Ones."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weak

She is stunning, and you are weak.

You recall watching her as she surveyed the halls time and time again, floating delicately, snowy blond hair pushed back with dark headbands and ribbons. She isn’t employed here, but she’s here often, most likely a high school volunteer. She moved as if she were part of some grand waltz, tiptoeing graciously throughout the small boneyard of Sick Kids and Dead Ones.

You’d been a Sick Kid for a long time.

It had all started when you were very, very young. Porrim had been buttoning up your jumper, the same way she always did, after breakfast. She would count- _one, two, three, four-_ until reaching the sixth. There were always six. _Six buttons,_ she’d say, _for Little Miss Six._

She’d stopped at five and called for mother, panic coloring her usually smooth voice. You couldn’t see the button-shaped bruises lining your back, but your mother could. Porrim could. It all went downhill from there.

Leukemia, the doctors had mumbled in pitying tones; they didn’t have the strength to meet your mother’s eyes, emerald green and broken. They poked you and prodded you, drained you and examined you- your childhood became a fog of antiseptic solutions and fallen platelets. Your doctors and nurses stuffed you with needles and marrow, bringing back together the seams of your skin with Hello Kitty bandages and IV tethers.  

Years passed; Mother remarried, presenting a tiny, squishy baby boy nicknamed Karkat, with pouted lips and eyes of thunder. Porrim went away to school, being three years older than you, though she managed to visit on occasional weekends and holidays. Everyone changed, grew, blossomed-

Everyone but you.

You were still a Sick Kid. You wondered quite frequently when you would be upgraded to Sick Adult. At least you weren’t a Dead One- you hadn’t succumbed, yet, to the betrayal of your own body, the betrayal of your own blood. You weren’t Dead yet, and it was going to stay that way.

On your seventeenth birthday, you woke to the sound of a heart rate monitor, early, early, early in the morning. The sun had sliced across your eyes, upsetting your slumber. You took a moment to marvel over the mere paleness of your skin; the ribs that coveted your organs produced stark shadows, canyons, even, over your navel, and your hipbones dipped deep enough to snugly nudge a fist into. Porrim and Mother had lovely figures- curves in all of the right places, long and slender, still, but delicate. You knew you were all points and angles. Maybe if you didn’t spend ninety-five percent of your life puking your meals after chemo you would’ve filled out. This thought crossed your mind rarely; it wasn’t as if you could change it. It wasn’t your fault you had cancer. It wasn’t your fault that Mother’s glassy green eyes looked cracked, or that Porrim appeared ten years older than her twenty years, or that Karkat had deep smudges under his thunder-eyes from staying up late at the hospital. It wasn’t. It _wasn’t._

Of course not.

But on your seventeenth birthday, you decided to not think of these things- of your hipbone caverns or your Mother’s distance or your siblings’ pain- because you are seventeen today, and that means you have lived eleven years longer than you could have. Eleven years longer than fate had deemed necessary.

Rolling over, you look out into the corridor, carefully navigating around the cords and tubes attached to your skin, and you can see her. She, the snowy-white haired girl, the waltzing girl, the girl who floats above almost-corpses and survivors, glides into your room. She’s small and thin, large eyes lined neatly and powdered with something shimmery; she’s wearing a black dress, A-line, with a laced collar that frames the pearls around her slender neck fittingly, and she is just as beautiful up close as she was from afar. She is stunning, and you are weak.

“Would you happen to be Kanaya Maryam?”

She doesn’t botch the pronunciation of your name. You are pretty sure you are in love.

“Yes,” You reply, hoping your voice is stronger than its usual quiver today. “May I have the honor of learning your name as well?” Your voice cracks a little. She doesn’t flinch.

“Rose,” she says with a smirk, “Rose Lalonde, at your service.”

She curtseys. _Be still, my beating heart._

There’s a pause, and you realize you are both gazing at each other. You jump a tad, clearing your dry throat, and smile politely.

“What brings you to my lovely abode, Ms. Lalonde?” You motion to the drabness of your hospital room with a pleasant grimace. She laughs delicately, tucking a loose strand of blonde behind her ear, and raises her hands.

She’s carrying a small cake. Your name is beautifully iced on the top in lavender frosting, adorned with small green vines and roses.

“I’m volunteering. They told me it was your birthday today, and…Well.” She looks up, and though her back is still stock straight and her arms are poised stiffly, a flush touches her cheeks. “I happened to see your painting in the art show last week, with the chess people and the girl that was simply _radiating_ light, and I was baffled, to say the least. You’re very talented.”

You feel the blush color the tips of your ears and you thank her, but raise an eyebrow as you nod your head towards the dessert.

She shrugs. “I wanted to introduce myself. Who doesn’t like cake?”

She ends up sitting on the end of your bed, divvying the cake into small pieces and conversing animatedly with you about painting and wizards and dresses. As she speaks, you belatedly realize that you have lifted yourself to lean on your elbows, back fully off the mattress. This is the most you’ve moved in weeks, with the most recent bout of chemo. You beam at her as she titters about the recent installment to her favorite terrible vampire romance series, feeling warmth drip into your heart.

Her skin seems to radiate light, and you realize where you’ve seen her before.   

She is stunning, and she makes you _strong._


End file.
